Bureau Valley comes up short on final play against Elmwood-Brimfield

MANLIUS - Down by six with 36.4 seconds left, Bureau Valley was put in prime position to complete a comeback victory.

Elmwood-Brimfield sailed a snap over its punter’s head, giving the Storm the ball at the Trojan 20-yard line.

A 5-yard completion and two pass interference calls later, Bureau Valley got one last chance with an untimed down from the 4.

Storm quarterback Bryce Helms took the snap, juked and tried to get outside, but he was met by Elmwood-Brimfield’s Erik Vazquez. Helms was swallowed up by several other Trojan defenders as Bureau Valley lost 27-21 on its homecoming in a Lincoln Trail-Prairieland Conference Large Division game Friday.

“That’s not our forte,” Bureau Valley coach Mat Pistole said about the last drive. “We don’t even disguise that, but our kids executed pretty well. Bryce kept putting the ball in the right spots. Our receivers were doing a nice job and we were getting calls.

“We got ourselves a shot there at the end. Unfortunately, we didn’t make a play when we absolutely had to have it, but it’s a good learning experience for these kids. We haven’t played in these types of games all year and even last year. We haven’t played in a really tight game and these kids needed to experience it and now they have. They saw it. They felt it. They know what it’s like. And now we have to let this fuel us for the rest of the year.”

The final drive/play was a microcosm of the game for the Storm as they had several missed opportunities and miscues that proved costly.

Bureau Valley turned the ball over on second-and-goal on its opening possession, lost three fumbles and got stopped on fourth down twice. And the Trojans (5-1, 4-1 LTP Large) capitalized.

After the Storm fumbled on their first possession, E-B needed just three plays to score as Matthew Glenn broke free for a 55-yard touchdown run, stiff-arming a Storm defender to the ground along the sideline on his way to the end zone.

A Storm fumble on their first drive of the second half gave the Trojans the ball on the BV 19, and they cashed in with a 19-yard TD run by Bo Windish on their first play to go up 20-7.

“We were moving the ball and we were doing good things,” Pistole said. “They just do some things differently on defense and offense that just give you problems. This is a you can’t turn the ball over against. You just can’t and we did and unfortunately, they took advantage of it. They’re a good team and that’s what good teams do.”

Still, the Storm almost pulled out the comeback.

Down 20-7, Bureau Valley lost a third fumble, but the Storm responded with a big defensive play. On E-B’s first play, BV’s Bracin Patnoe forced and recovered a fumble to give the Storm the ball on the Trojan 37.

Eight plays later, Elijah Endress scored on a 1-yard run to pull BV within 20-14 with 11:50 left.

However, the Trojans responded with a 14-play, 60-yard scoring drive that took 5:52 off the clock to push their lead to 27-14 with 6:07 left. Bureau Valley needed less than 3 minutes to score with Brady Hartz running in from 15 yards out to cut the deficit to 27-21 with 3:09 left.

The Storm then came up with a stop and E-B’s high punt snap gave them a final chance.

Bureau Valley trailed 13-7 at halftime.

Endress scored on a 1-yard run to tie it with 2:16 left in the opening quarter, but the Trojans answered with a quick 80-yard scoring drive that ended when quarterback CJ Ramirez found a wide open Windish for a 45-yard TD with 19.5 seconds left.

Endress ran for 121 yards and two TDs on 25 carries, while Helms completed 9-of-16 passes for 119 yards and ran for 60 yards on 16 attempts.

The Storm (3-3, 2-2) travel to Illini West next week.